


stand up, sons

by sketchbook henry (bessemerprocess)



Category: Glee
Genre: Ballet, Eating Disorders, Gen, Growing Up, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/sketchbook%20henry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse grows up, and grows tough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stand up, sons

**Author's Note:**

> As Glee is now a closed canon, and one I no longer write in, I'm uploading story chunks that can stand on their own. Originally written May 2010. Mary Cate and the pointe shoe head-canon may seem familiar to those who have read [En Avant](http://archiveofourown.org/works/152173).

Jesse has four older brothers: Nate, Luke, Jake, and Matt. He's the youngest by a mile, a blessing from God, his mother always says. It would've been more of a blessing if he'd been the girl his mother wanted, he thinks sometimes.

When he is four years old, his mother signs up him up for the children's choir at her church. It should be their church, but his brothers only go under protest and his dad never does. Jesse just wants to make his mom happy and when he sings about baby Jesus and the angels his mom smiles like he's the only thing that matters.

He's four years old and standing in front of the entire congregation of Grace Bible Church, singing about baby Jesus. He'll never forget his mother's smile. Brilliant and proud and happy for once. His brothers fidget beside her. His father doesn't come. _There is a business meeting somewhere, champ._

His mother is smiling though, so Jesse lifts his voice to the angels just like the choir director taught him and doesn't stop.

Jesse knows, even at the tender age of four that his mother is sad. Later he'll realize that she married up, married young and that she never quite embraced his father's world. They live in a house that could make it on the cover of _Better Homes and Garden_. There are housekeepers and the Junior League and a thousand other things that mark them as upper-middle class suburbanites.

By the time Jesse is born, his father has found a mistress and his mother has found Jesus.

His brothers are all taller than he is: taller, smarter and more athletic. Matty plays football for Ohio State until he blows out his knee in his junior year and then goes pre-med. Jake goes to the Naval Academy and is now out there under the water somewhere, keeping America safe. Luke is a lawyer and still plays a mean game of pickup basketball. Nate is an architect who went through college on a full swimming scholarship.

The only thing Jesse can do is sing and in Ohio, in his father's house that doesn't make you a man.

He's the only one left in the house. His brothers are all gone to college and to real life and Jesse is left with his mother and a father that doesn't come home all that often.

The girls in ballet all get pointe shoes this year and Jesse doesn't. There's only one other boy in the eleven year old class, and he's never been competition, so it irks somewhere deep in Jesse's soul that Mary Cate Tatum will always be better at something that he is, especially at something he's not going to even get the chance to try.

He tries blackmail, but in the end it’s the begging that does it. Jesse spends all his horded birthday and Christmas money on a pairing of pointe shoes. Mary Cate’s older sister buys them for him, after rolling her eyes at least twenty-five times, and Jesse and Mary Cate spend the entire summer at her basement barre, teaching Jesse all the thing he isn’t supposed to be learning in class. They dance their toes bloody twice a week, and both become experts at wrapping toes and hiding blood stains.

Mary Cate's been his very best competition for as long as he can remember. That's better than having a best friend.

They started ballet together at five. He'd pulled her pigtails, she'd kicked him in the shin. They've been like that ever since. Jesse has to be the best because if he's not Mary Cate will be there to take his place through whatever means necessary. 

Still, they hold court at lunch all the way through high school. Eating isn't as important as mocking, and Jesse's salad isn't all that appetizing. Mary Cate doesn't even bring a lunch anymore. She’s not his direct competition, not anymore. Jesse is going to be on Broadway, and Mary Cate is going to be a prima ballerina, but that doesn't stop them.

And then Mary Cate disappears one day. She doesn't answer his phone calls or his emails, and her parents don’t answer when he knocks on the door. Her sister takes pity on him a week later, opening the door and motioning him to sit on the front step with her. Mary Cate is at a clinic, Mary Cate isn't coming back to school, not ever, and her parents don’t want her talking to anyone she used to know for her own good. 

And so Jesse goes back to Carmel, and has to hold court at lunch all on his own. It’s harder than it seems, even with his teammates fawning and Shelby’s praise. There is always more backstabbing, more criticism, than there are kind words. Jesse’s always been tough, though, he’s danced his toes bloody out of sheer stubbornness, taken his place on Vocal Adrenaline as a baby faced freshman and held it against all comers. Jesse just has to keep working, because it’s never going to be enough, not even when he stands up on that stage to accept his Tony. 

And then Shelby asks him for a favor, and all Jesse St. James’ carefully laid out plans go out the window.


End file.
